Creativity, care and 'messy' drug use: A collective history of the early days of peer-led needle exchange in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Abstract

Established in 1988, the New Zealand Needle Exchange Program (NZNEP) was the first needle exchange programme in the world to operate nation-wide under legal sanction. As in other countries, the ground for legislative reform was laid by activist action among the affected communities and their allies. In context of growing HIV/AIDS notifications, the provision of injecting equipment was positioned as a necessary, albeit politically contentious, public health priority. The NZNEP operated under a unique organisational model, with a national network of peer organisations formalised and supported to provide 'user pays' needle exchange. Unlike many other programmes of community empowerment instigated in response to HIV/AIDS, the NZNEP has over the past thirty years retained a significant degree of community control. Not without tensions, this history requires commemoration. The body of this essay was originally written as a chapter, focusing on the history of DIVO (Dunedin Intravenous Organisation), for a book to commemorate thirty years of the NZNEP. Under the auspices of a 'secret Facebook group' seven peers who worked at DIVO in the late 1980s and early 90s contributed the memories that make up this piece. As one of these peers, the author collated, coded and thematised these remembrances to create the story of DIVOS early days. From strategic positioning as a drug user organisation 'under wraps' DIVO garnered enough community support and institutional confidence to be 'out and proud' in advocating for the human rights of PWID. Ingenuity and action necessitated 'bending the rules' to protect against hepatitis C, and a community of care was recreated in the warmth of reconnection among the Facebook peer group. Tensions are inevitable in a peer-based organisation innovating in a context of precarious legitimacy, and they weave throughout this essay. This collective history is, however, primarily celebratory - of the achievements and legacy of a network of peers who were instrumental in providing care for their communities and advocating publicly for the rights of PWID in New Zealand.